This invention relates to a joint connector for connecting a plurality of connection terminals together which are provided, for example, within a mating connector housing.
A joint connector of this kind is used for obtaining a plurality of branch wire portions from a trunk wire portion of a wire harness employed, for example, in an electric system of an automobile or the like, and generally, a technique as disclosed for example in JP-A-8-17531 is known. Namely, as shown in FIG. 6, a joint connector 1 of JP-A-8-17531 includes a connector housing 2, a pair of connection terminals 3 for being fixed to the connector housing 2, and an inter-terminal connecting portion 4 electrically connecting the connection terminals 3 together. The inter-terminal connecting portion 4 is formed by a bus bar, and is adapted to be inserted in a rear side of the connector housing 2.
In the joint connector using such a plug-in type bus bar as the inter-terminal connecting portion, when the number of connection terminals increases, the structure of a portion for effecting the connection between the terminals becomes complicated, and therefore there is used a joint technique (see, for example, JP-A-5-3619) employing bus bars and a board as commonly known in an electric connection box for mounting on an automobile. Namely, the structure as indicated by a circle C in FIG. 7 is used as the portion for effecting the connection between the terminals of the joint connector.
When the number of connection terminals of the joint connector increases, the structure of the portion for effecting the connection between the terminals becomes complicated as described above, and therefore the kinds of bus bars to be used increase, and this invites problems that the management of the parts is complicated and that the weight, the cost and the time and labor for the operation increase. And besides, when the structure as indicated by circle C in FIG. 7 is used, the depth of the joint connector increases, thus inviting a problem that the overall size becomes large. Furthermore, when the structure as indicated by circle C in FIG. 7 is used, the degree of freedom of a circuitry design is limited, so that there is encountered a problem that such a structure can not meet a more complicated circuit arrangement.